Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools

By Mary Raftery, Eoin O'Sullivan, Eain O'Sullivan, et al.

Book Overview

This history of industrial schools in Ireland offers an insight into the minds of government officials and religious orders who ran this vast system. First-hand testimony from the survivors of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826413374
• ISBN13: 9780826413376
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group
• Length: 424 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.3" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Shameful Irish Catholic

This book is comprehensive and deeply moving. I could not put it down. I was disgusted and angry by the end of it. I am ashamed to be Irish and ashamed to be Catholic. How this could have gone on for so long with no help for these children is beyond words. If there is a hell, then open arms to all those sick and sadistic Brothers and Nuns, all of whom were operating in the name of God....! How dare they call themselves charitable and merciful. They are some of the most vile human beings in existence. Between that and the sex scandal in America, the Catholic Church owes many people an apology and some sort of restitution. For shame the Church still chooses to cover up it's misuse of power. If the Nuns and Priests and Brothers were not so sexually frustrated, maybe they wouldn't be so evil. Sorry to vent so strongly. After reading this book, you will feel the same way. Also read Do Penance or Perish, but not as good as this book. Thank you.

Understanding Ireland

This book presents a portrait of 20th century Ireland that will debunk any nostalgic or sentimental view of the so called 'Emerald Isle'. No shamrocks and leprecauns in this book, but a history of cruelty, abuse and power. It tells the story of how Irish children were incarcerated in huge numbers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in reformatory and industrial schools which were managed by the Catholic Church. Based on detailed historical research and interspersed with gut-wrenching first hand accounts of survivors of these institutions, it shows how an alliance between a power hungry Catholic Church and an indifferent Irish State resulted in the incarceration of the children of the poor. Rather than helping poor families, Church and State removed these children to bleak institutions where large numbers were sexually and physically abused and tortured by their Christian carers. I don't think that I will ever think about the Catholic Church and Ireland in the same way ever again. Anger, saddness, frustration, disbelief, but above all anger - why did this happen? I experienced all these emotions when reading this book. If you want to really understand Irish society, this book is essential and harrowing reading.

How Could This Happen?

This is a shocking and rivetting book. It deals with the enormous scale of child abuse in Irish institutions during much of the 20th century. This included severe sexual and physical abuse, together with emotional bullying and serious neglect. It was carried out mainly by members of Catholic religious orders. This book shows that the abuse was not secret -- Irish society knew about it, but denied that knowledge to itself and didn't act to protect the thousands of children literally locked up in this incredible system. But most importantly, this book is fascinating on the international connections of all this. It shows that some of the Irish-based Catholic orders exported this terrible system to abuse children all over the world. The Irish Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy set up institutions for children in Australia and in Canada, and 'Suffer the Little Children' provides us with a unique insight into the terrible cruelties visiting on these children as well. This is the most comprehensive telling of a child abuse system that I have ever read. It is essential for anyone who cares about how societies fail to protect those who most need that protection, and the awful consequences of that failure. While it primarily concerns Ireland, this book has a universal and widespread importance.

Tragedy of Ireland's Lost Children

This is a heart-wrenching book, a rollercoaster ride through the misery of what happened to thousands of Irish children during the 20th century. It is also so surprising and so unexpected that Ireland could have treated so many of its children with such terrible cruelty. If you were a child living in poverty, you had a good chance of being picked up by the courts, locked up in one of the country's many 'industrial schools', where children suffered terrible abuse at the hands of the Catholic priests, brothers, and nuns who rans these child prisons. This book is full of detailed historical research as to how and why this system was so large and so vicious. Weaving throughout it in the most compelling way are the individual memories of the victims or survivors of these child gulags. Some of them would break your heart, others just leave you lost in admiration for the courage and resilience of people who were subjected to such cruel abuse. By placing all of this in the context of Irish society and its development from colony to independence, this book raises profound issues about how societies deal with the evil within them, how they continue to deny their own complicity and lack of courage in defending their most vulnerable citizens. It also raises deeply disturbing questions about the nature of the Catholic Church in probably the most Catholic country on earth -- namely Ireland. How was it that so many of its chosen brothers and nuns could so openly abuse children, with no one seemingly having the courage to challenge them within the religious orders. All in all, a disturbing but vital book for people anywhere in the world to be able to understand how social institutions can fail the most fundamental of tests, can continue with universal complicity to victimise and abuse those with no one to defend them.